The controversial acquittals of the 2-G accused by the Special CBI Judge O P Saini raises more questions than it answers. The judgement is ill-reasoned, self-contradictory and seeks to rationalize criminal conduct whenever it is unable to justify it. In one word, it is grossly flawed. Without exonerating the CBI for its shoddiness, the fact is that there was so much material on record which in the normal course ought to have been more than sufficient to convict the bribe-taking minister A. Raja, and the bribe-giving beneficiaries of the crooked way he corrupted the first-come-first-serve system for allotment of precious spectrum. It is nobody’s case that FCFS by itself was wrong. No, the way he twisted this policy to favour the bribe-givers and to keep out the rest was at the root of the 2-G scam. How arbitrarily and surreptitiously the closure deadline was changed, to keep out those not in the inner loop of Raja, how the Press Note was altered to favour two particular companies, how those who had paid bribes were ready with pay orders for the exact amount above Rs 1,600 crores underpinned the criminal conspiracy. Judge Saini needed to dilate on and deliberate over the foolproof material in the public domain, which also formed part of the charge-sheet. Had he done so, he would not have set the crooks free. The judge does not even smell a scandal when senior PMO officials beseech Raja to do whatever he was up to so long as he kept Manmohan Singh out of the loop. In other words, Singh was OK with the scam if Raja would not keep him informed. For Judge Saini’s knowledge in the coal scam, a former coal secretary has been convicted though he had no role in arbitrary allocations and had kept the prime minister, who was his own coal minister, duly posted. More importantly, the former coal secretary enjoys universal reputation for honesty and conscientious conduct. Above all, the former coal secretary was held guilty though the court has nowhere found an iota of proof that he was a pecuniary beneficiary. In the annals of political corruption, Raja is bound to find a very high place despite the clean chit by Judge Saini. Where Judge Saini would figure in the records of jurisprudence, we will leave it to his conscience. What is most shocking is that a clear-cut money trail leading to Kalaignar TV was cited in explicit detail. Further, how upon the registration of the case against Raja, the bribe amount of Rs 200 crores was sought to be returned was also put on record. But, the judicial conscience of the court remained unmoved. The fact that the Supreme Court had cancelled the licenses issued by Raja calling the process ‘arbitrary, corrupt and unconstitutional’ was of no consequence either. Again, Judge Saini wrongly states that the prosecution was not ready to sign the submitted evidence. The Supreme Court-appointed prosecutor Anand Grover is on record to say that he told the court that he would sign the documents if the defense, too, was ordered to sign, a request the court declined. You can draw your own conclusions when the prosecutor is sought to be coerced into doing something which the defense is not. Again, the telecom secretary whom Raja removed post haste, when he refused to toe his corrupt line, is criticised by Judge Saini, but the telecom secretary who acts as a doormat, willing to sign on the dotted line is held innocent!
Meanwhile, the less said the better of the politicians and sections of the media jumping with joy, triumphantly asking ‘where is the scam?’ One of the biggest scams of the UPA era does not cease to be one merely because the bribe-takers and bribe-givers have succeeded in gaming the justice system. And those pooh-poohing the former comptroller and auditor general for reporting a presumptive loss of 1.76 lakh crore loss ought to know that the figure was not conjured up by him out of thin air. As a reputed business editor has said, that figure of potential loss was based on what an operator, S Tel, was ready to shell out for the same spectrum and another on what foreign operators had paid to companies for mere spectrum. And to say that Raja’s policy was meant to bring down costs for telecom users, the fact that without those licenses the tariffs continued to fall and have since fallen to record low levels knocks the bottom from that specious argument. In short, 2-G, it was a huge scam. And despite honourable Justice Om Prakash Saini’s edict, it continues to be a huge scam.
